Changeling

by Matt Wesolowski

  —You’ve probably spent more time in Wentshire Forest than most people, Sorrel. I’ve often wondered if you’ve ever experienced anything strange here.

  —There’s a lot that’s strange about the forest. People say there are things there, things that no one can explain. I remember all that was going on at the time. The builders couldn’t get anything done.

  Yes, strange things happen in Wentshire Forest. Even now.

  —What sort of things?

  —Lights, sounds. This is MoD land, though, so it could be anything – they could be testing some sort of experimental weapons, couldn’t they?

  —What have you seen, just out of interest? While you’ve been walking here?

  —I’ve seen things that you’d tell me I was lying about. White lights going in and out of the trees. Odd noises I couldn’t explain. It’s why the MoD keep people out.

  —What do you think the MoD are actually testing?

  —Sonic weapons and stuff, I imagine. And I reckon they were conducting all sorts of tests in the forest long before they set up the base. That would explain all the nonsense people say – about the witch, the fairies, ghosts and all that rubbish.

  —Do you think your story has anything to do with the MoD? The tapping in the engine?

  —I don’t know. I could never explain that. We were driving along the pass. Yes, I might have been going quickly, but not too quick. I had my boy in the back, after all. Then there’s this noise … this tapping sound coming from the engine. I’ll admit, I was scared.

  —Alfie didn’t wake up, though…

  —No. He was tired. And they sleep through anything, don’t they? Anyway, I had to stop. And that’s when … Oh God, it never gets any easier telling this story. I was looking at the engine for all of five minutes and … and when I looked back, he was gone.

  Maybe he ran off, he was a strong-minded kid. A handful. No wonder, with Sonia the way she was, and me working all hours. All he needed was a bit of consistency, some decent parenting.

  —Is that what you think you could have given Alfie if he’d been with you and not Sonia? Decent parenting.

  —Yes. Of course. We all know what Sonia was like.

  There is a degree of prickliness about Sorrel as he tells his story. I wonder if he repeats the same account all these years later through stubborn resolve or because he actually believes it.

  —I’ve told the story a great number of times. I can tell it without thinking. I’ve never changed it. There’s been no need.

  —The thing is, Sorrel, I don’t really want to talk about Alfie. Not just yet.

  —So what is it you think you want to discuss? Sonia? Whatever she’s said, you need to know how much someone like that lies. You need to have a think about what she wants out of all this.

  —What do you think she wants?

  —Oh, I don’t know. Exposure on your podcast thing? Sonia will say anything to anyone. She was probably just glad someone could be bothered to listen to her. She’s had people whispering in her ear about me from day one. Such an impressionable woman.

  —I’ve not implied that Sonia’s said anything bad about you.

  —It’s the principle of the thing. Sonia is Alfie’s mother, but she’s never given a stuff about him. About me. She likes to pretend that I’m the bad guy in all this. But I had to work to keep a roof over our heads while Sonia spent all Alfie’s food and nappy money on drink. That’s the facts.

  —Did you ever think about getting help for her? You knew she was struggling with her drinking, right? Her mental health.

  —I tried alright. But there wasn’t that much out there in those days.

  —Sonia was taking medication, wasn’t she?

  —Yes.

  There’s a tense silence. I am seized by an impulse to blurt something out. Sorrel, though, is being careful, never saying too much. He’s good at manipulating silence. I am too.

  —I searched for my son in that forest, all the way to the building site. In the rain, in the dark. I was screaming his name. It was pitch-black in there. I was soaked to the skin. And I couldn’t find him…

  Sorrel’s sincerity is infectious, I want to draw these questions in another direction, away from that night. Sorrel, however, has conjured up his grief, his story.

  —Did anyone know about Sonia’s problems? Her family? Her friends?

  —They were against me from the start. They filled Sonia’s head with lies, with rubbish about me, trying to turn her against me. She refused to stand up to them; left it to me.

  Finding out that I have tracked down and spoken to Sonia has clearly upset Sorrel. He remains stoic though, not answering when I ask him further questions. For a few minutes I wonder if I’ve spoiled this opportunity. Like everyone who’s met him says, there’s something about the man that makes me want to please him. It’s uncanny.

  —How does it feel, thirty years on from that night? I can’t imagine it gets easier.

  —I still find it hard. They say time is a healer, but not for me, it isn’t.

  —And do you still have hope? That Alfie might just one day walk out of the forest and into your arms?

  —Yes. I dream of that day.

  Another powerful silence, and the rage that is simmering deep in my belly is beginning to bubble over. I think of Sonia, who has given everything she had to Sorrel. I think of her sacrifice. There’s something in Sorrel’s voice that dares me to disbelieve him, dares me to challenge him. And it’s hard not to let this mask of faux-objectivity slip. I find myself choked with emotion, a lump forming in my throat. I try to laugh and it comes out as a sob. Because the thing is, I believe him. I believe that he believes what he’s telling me.

  I tell Sorrel I’ve spoken to Wendy Morris, too. That’s something he wasn’t expecting. I hear a sound on the end of the line; a sniff, a snort; almost a hiss.

  —Let me tell you something about Alfie. I’ve never told anyone this story. You can have it for free. It’s a world exclusive, or whatever you want to call it…

  —Go on…

  —That Wendy Morris, I thought we were friends. It just goes to show how people change, how false people are. You think you know someone and a few years go by and poof, suddenly they’re someone else. No one has any real integrity anymore. You just can’t trust other people. But that’s always been my problem. I attracted those sorts of women – needy and with problems. I don’t know why. Yes, she came to help us out on a holiday that didn’t go quite to plan. But it was thanks to Sonia! Sonia was the one who begged and begged me to ask someone to come and help her with Alfie. She wanted a babysitter so she could drink and not have to look after our son. I’m sure that’s not how she told that story though, is it? I bet she said Wendy being there was all down to me. Sonia’s always been an amazing storyteller. I can see she got through to you…

  I want to admit something. At this point in the interview, just for a moment, I doubt everything I’ve heard about Sorrel Marsden. I wonder if he is actually not in the wrong. I can feel myself wanting to excuse him, to protect him.

  I steady myself. Tell myself to think logically, remember who is the trapper here, who is the prey. I have to remind myself what I know, what I’m carrying with me. I have to feel the weight of it before I can carry on. Like a loaded gun, a sheathed sword.

  —Sonia was the one who was drunk. Sonia let Alfie wander off into the forest in the middle of the night. Wendy and Sonia. They were as thick as thieves. Wendy practically throwing herself at me every time Sonia’s back was turned. But it was me was who found Alfie. Right?

  —That’s what I’ve heard.

  —Exactly. Me. Not Wendy, not Sonia. Alfie was running away into that forest in the middle of the night. He was running away from a mother who didn’t care enough about him. I swear to you.

  I have another moment where I want to unleash. What I have can tear apart Sorrel Marsden’s web of lies. The power of it is intoxicating and I wonder if right at this moment the two of us are something ali
ke. Addicted to this feeling. It makes me want to scream my question; to ask Sorrel what it was he was doing in Wentshire Forest that first time. Was this a run-through, a rehearsal? Did he mean to rid his life of his own son and place the blame on his partner that day? Did Wendy Morris waking up at that moment ruin everything?

  But I hold off. I can’t prove anything. Not about this. Not yet. All I can say is … All I can say is that if Alfie was running away, there was a good reason why. I ask Sorrel, tentatively, about the story he made up in the woods to discipline Alfie – about the wood-knockers.

  —Yes, I made up a stupid story about wood … things. I was trying to keep him from running off. I had to be a parent to all three of them that weekend. But when Alfie came back out of that wood … he was different. Something had changed in him. It was like he’d been replaced. By another child. I couldn’t get close to him after that. No one could. I think the whole experience damaged him. Mentally. It was like he was no longer my son.

  —And why do you think Alfie changed?

  —I lived with my grandmother for most of my childhood. She always told me that I was bad, that I was different to my brothers and sisters. I didn’t look like any of them. It was genetics; I know that now. My grandmother, though, she told me that I’d been ‘switched’ in the night, when I was a baby. The fairies had the real Sorrel and that’s why I was so bad.

  During that holiday to Wentshire Forest I realised that Alfie had maybe hit some kind of point in his life – that he’d changed somehow, and not for the better. I thought that, because I couldn’t be there to help him, he’d changed.

  Alfie spent his days with an alcoholic with mental problems. And that’s what changed him! No nonsense about fairies!

  After that holiday, his behaviour in school was appalling. I tried everything I could to get him right, but I was too late. There was only one way to get him back to the boy he could have been. I had to take him away from Sonia.

  Sorrel is brimming with emotion, his voice hoarse. This is my moment, I have seen a flash of weakness and I strike. Hard and fast.

  —Sorrel, I don’t believe any of that. I think you’re lying.

  —What? How dare you. What do you want with me?

  —I just want to talk.

  —Well, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of you. I don’t want to do this anymore.

  —That’s an interesting choice of words.

  —What on earth could you mean by that?

  —‘I don’t want to do this’. Do those words sound familiar to you?

  —What the hell are you talking about?

  As an answer to Sorrel’s outrage, I play one of the recordings you heard at the start of the episode. I play it with the voice clean. Then I play another one, and another. I say each person’s name afterwards.

  Sorrel does not react.

  Eventually, after a horrible silence, he speaks.

  —Prove it.

  —What?

  —Prove any of it. It’s amazing what people will do to get their name known – for a little bit of fame or money. How much did you pay these women to say those lies about me?

  —Nothing. No one was paid.

  —Well then, what was the point? What is your point? I thought you were here to help me look for my son, not play me lies.

  —I’m here to talk.

  —Well, I don’t have to talk to you. You’re here on some character assassination mission.

  —You don’t have a choice. Just like those women didn’t have a choice, Sorrel.

  —I do and so did they! I never harmed one hair on any of those women’s heads. Slags, the lot of them; whores and slags. All they did was lie and cheat and sleep around. Now they want to tell lies about a father who’s lost his son. Disgraceful. You’re disgraceful.

  —Coercive behaviour is an act or a pattern of acts of assault, threats, humiliation and intimidation, or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim.

  —What are you talking about?

  —Controlling behaviour is a range of acts designed to make a person subordinate and/or dependent by isolating them from sources of support, exploiting their resources and capacities for personal gain, depriving them of the means needed for independence, resistance and escape, and regulating their everyday behaviour.

  —What are you talking about?

  —I’m talking about the law, Mr Marsden. This is how the 2015 offence of coercive or controlling behaviour is described. And I’m talking about Maryanne Manon. I’m talking about Sonia Lewis. You can say what you like, Sorrel, but it’s their words against yours.

  —Liars. Both of them!

  —Their words and many others. Their words that they kept quiet out of respect, not for you, but for Alfie.

  —What?

  —You acted quickly. You showed your face on the television, you were at the forefront of every search.

  —Of course I was. I’m his father, for fuck’s sake!

  —But you didn’t do it for Alfie, did you? You made yourself a hero because that was your way of being able to remain in control. You knew none of these women, especially Sonia, would say a word about who you really are.

  —They could have. Of course they could. But they didn’t! Ask yourself why that is. It’s because they’re liars.

  —It’s because you chose women like Sonia, like Maryanne – vulnerable women with problems. Who would believe a drug-addict and an alcoholic? Who would believe Sonia after you ‘rescued’ Alfie from her care? After you wrenched from her the only thing she had. You took everything from her because you could.

  —Sonia and I … we were special…

  —You told her that. And I don’t doubt you told yourself that, too. The thing is, it was only special because it went your way. You had her exactly where you wanted her. You found a young, naïve girl, and you broke her and built her back up until she was fully under your control.

  —That’s not true. I never laid one hand on Sonia.

  —That now carries a five-year prison sentence, Sorrel. You don’t have to have touched her. And you didn’t need to. You broke her from the inside out. Drip, drip, drip. Like water torture.

  It was her love for Alfie that saved her. Ironic, really, seeing as you got her pregnant as just another way to isolate and control her.

  —I loved—

  —Sorrel, this isn’t about you anymore. This is about Alfie.

  There is a sharp intake of breath and the line at Sorrel’s end goes dead. I spend a few moments trying to call back but it doesn’t even ring.

  It’s telling that at the mention of Alfie, Sorrel decides he’s had enough.

  An admission of guilt, perhaps? That’s not for me to say. What I am able to reveal, however, is the case I have against Sorrel Marsden; the case I would have put to him to answer.

  Perhaps we’d better start at the beginning – with the most important person in this story: Alfie himself.

  I believe Alfie Marsden was born not as a result of some paternal instinct on the part of Sorrel, but simply as a device, as a cog in a mechanism of coercion and control against Sonia Lewis. Alfie’s life was disposable.

  What has brought me to this terrible conclusion? All we have heard. I believe that Sorrel Marsden gaslighted Sonia and encouraged Alfie to do the same. He utilised his son as a weapon against Sonia’s sanity. The strange phenomena that were being reported in Wentshire Forest, at the Great Escapes site, were prominent in the press at the time. The tapping, the suggestion of some sort of hidden folk and of strange, hybrid animals – Sorrel used these to make Sonia’s life a misery, making her believe she was losing her mind. Looking back at Wendy and Delyth’s stories – and even Maryanne’s – we know they all experienced tapping noises and unexplained occurrences when either Sorrel or Alfie were somewhere in the vicinity. And the same is true of Sonia.

  We know, too, that Sorrel encouraged Alfie to play the ‘bad mouse’ game on his mother. We also have in Wendy a witness to Sorrel tapping on wood to
scare Sonia in Alfie’s presence. All of this would have seemed like fun to the boy, and perhaps it was the only positive attention he had from his father.

  Little boys worship their fathers, however awful those fathers are. Alfie was on his way to becoming a mini Sorrel: aping his behaviour, mimicking his sustained assault against Sonia. And sadly, this was Alfie’s only real use his father had for him. Once Sorrel had utterly conquered Sonia, Alfie had served his purpose. How can I be sure? Let’s look at the facts. Sorrel made no effort to be with his son, save for the occasional visit. The family he neglected were simply an irritant.

  My belief, based on the evidence I have gathered, is that Sorrel Marsden meant to get rid of his son in Wentshire Forest on Christmas Eve, 1988. He had used the seven years of his son’s life to build a story around himself and Sonia – she the bad mother, the alcoholic; himself as the grieving hero. And it worked.

  We don’t know how Sorrel became this way, other than a small hint at the upbringing he endured from his grandmother. We can, however, speculate on how he perfected his technique. The ability to manipulate like this takes work. A monster has to practice becoming a monster. And practice gave Sorrel Marsden the ability to identify victims early; he learned that those with low self-esteem, were the easiest to control. He therefore learned how to spot a victim. He preyed on those he thought he could break – using them to hone his craft. We’ve heard from his victims, the people who have been brave enough to speak out about what he did.